Scarification
by Summerlea
Summary: the human body is a canvas. society calls it wrong. Axel calls it art. [axel.roxas. AU]
1. black

**Scarification**

**A/N:  
  
!!! If you have any problems reading about blood, cutting, carving, slicing or scarification, please turn back now. !!!**

Do not flame me - I warned you in an advance, and it's up to you to continue reading or not.  
This first piece is just the icing on the cake, and much more grotesque themes will work their way in on the next installment.

If you do not know what scarification is I highly suggest you look it up. I tried to post a link, but all that did was fuck up my story's HTML layout. - In short, it's a form of extreme body modification that's similar to tattooing, except instead of ink you slice the skin and cut it to form pictures. It scabs up, and then you tear the scabs up and repeat the process until the cuts become permanent scars.

This not a oneshot, and it is not an on-going chaptered fanfiction. It is, however, a two shot. So expect one more chapter/piece to finish this up.

* * *

Roxas is just another statistic. He is one in a million - he is a single 0.01 in the 14.9 percentage of depressed college students that exist. 

He is a cliché and a stereotype and it doesn't help that he's majoring in fine art. Once upon a time he used to cut - pressed razors into his pale skin until a thin line of blood would spurt from the slice, until the lines and gouges marked his wrists and trailed his legs and wrapped around his stomach.

Once upon a time, Roxas used to cut himself to feel something - because feeling pain is proof that you're still alive. That was until he noticed all of the long-sleeved shirt wearers in his classes; all of the girls who wore too many bracelets wrapped around their wrists; all the students who wore jackets in the middle of heat-waves, and then Roxas realized that cutting was not special. Cutting was not original, just like his oil paintings were not original, just like everyone else's charcoal sketches of the same landscape were not original.

Even in his pain, in his depression and misery, there was beauty that he needed to harness. And so the lines and the gouges, they became shapes. The slices on his stomach became flowing spirals, winding spider webs, and carves of the moon that bled through his shirt whenever he picked the scratches away.

Roxas does not have any friends. He has classmates and he has teachers and he has room-mates who couldn't remember his name. He has acquaintances who rode the same light rail train as him, and that was it.  
Roxas does not have any friends, so he does not have anyone to leave a letter for. He does not have anyone to call as he shut the heavy door to the large, open room that was home to a small indoors fountain that the rest of the city had forgotten about.

He doesn't lock the door because the bolt had rusted into place and there was no point in the first place - no one ever came here, he had made sure of that long before picking the place out.

Roxas settles beside the fountain's edge, and pushes his sleeves up to his elbows. Nimble fingers grasp the razor he has brought - not a blade, you could only get defined lines from a razor - and he presses deep upon the skin on his right wrist.  
No expression of pain touches his pale, angelic features, and he presses the sharp edge deeper. Crimson spurts upwards, puddling around the silver razor and staining the edges before he begins to draw. Down, he curves, zig-zagging slowly across the main artery in his wrist. Down further, until he's almost reached the fold in his arm, and then he pulls the razor off.  
Blood runs in thick trails down his arm as he tilts it, and the heavy droplets fall one at a time into the water he was so close to.

Again, Roxas brings the blade down, striking the main artery dead on, and he drags it downwards. The artery slowly shreds, opening wide and blood spreads like black roots around his wrist, pulling downward from gravity and falling at a faster rate into the water.

There is a sharp sting of pain in the back of his mind, but it is too hazy and too far away, so Roxas digs deeper to reach it. The small razor is dug so deep that it's tip is completely engulfed in the skin and can no longer be seen. He can feel the sharp edge dragging along his insides, tickling the hidden muscles in his arm, kissing the tendon that runs so close to the artery.

Up, he goes, to fill in the blanks in the canvas that he's left behind. He thinks of shadowing, of definition and the black and white and red color scheme as he paints.  
Abruptly, his vision swims and he realizes how deep he's cut - how much he's carved. He still has a whole other wrist - an entire _canvas_ to create something beautiful, but he's forgotten he was under a time limit and has wasted all of his precious time beautifying one.  
The razor stops, but there isn't enough time and his head is already nodding forward without his free will to stop it. No time to make it beautiful, but time enough to make sure this piece of artwork doesn't go half finished.

He switches the razor to his other hand, and the sticky blood coating it feels just like water-color paint on his clean fingers. He swirls the razor, rubbing it against his fingers and doesn't notice when the edges catch his skin and rip his fingers.  
Roxas dips closer to the water, sinking his finished arm into the murky depths to wash the blood from his paint-brush and the blood - which was beginning to slow in pace - begins to come forth with a new appetite. It stains the water within moments, the cloud of liquid red slowly spreading to engulf the entire fountain's pool, and Roxas is reminded again, of his time limit.  
He brings his arm out, wavers on the edge of the fountain's cold brick encasement, and quickly presses the razor's tip to his un-marred wrist. He presses hard, and brings the tip down quickly, slicing the artery sloppily and missing in one or two spots.

"_Disgusting,_" He scolds himself angrily, upset that he's wasted so much time and now must rush another piece. He goes quickly to clean up the slice, shredding the artery once more, deeper, and the blood snakes out in rivets.  
The cuts are deeper on this wrist, because his mind has gone hazy and it's difficult to see properly, but he swirls the blade up his wrist, zig-zagging to attempt the same picture he's already painted on his left wrist. It's harder with this hand, as well, because he's always been right-handed and the picture is looking less and less like a mirrored reflection and more like a sloppy copy cat's attempt to rob his piece.

He doesn't finish in time.  
Curving up again, his fingers go numb and he looses his grip on the razor and it tumbles down, down into the murky, stained water. Roxas is left to gape and stare after it, but he does not attempt to save it even though the silver winks at him with every ripple of the water.

Instead, Roxas leans forward. A soft splash echoes throughout the abandoned chamber as he lets his body drop into the shallow water - just deep enough to submerge his wrists completely, and not deep enough to drown him - and the boy - this depressed art student statistic - closes his eyes for the last time.

In his hazy unconsciousness, an angel visit him.

The angel has long red hair, the color of fresh spilt blood, and captivating emerald eyes. His angel leans in close enough for him to see the disapproving way his lips are turned down and the matching tear-drop tattoos underneath his eyes.  
His angel, he whispers, "_You've done it all wrong," _and hauls him up out of the cold.  
And then the world goes black.

* * *

reviews would be fantastic.


	2. white

A/N:  
Decided to push this to THREE CHAPTERS - not two - so you kids could get an update sooner. I'm in love with this chunk - something about how fucking romantic they are is just so weird considering how fucked up their relationship is.  
Also - everything that AXEL SAYS IN ITALICS has a double meaning. Keep that in mind while you read this chapter.  
Akuroku has added Marlu to the mix, as well. AkuMarluRoku.

* * *

In time he learns his angel's name is Axel.

It's after the paramedics arrive to take his cold body off of the dirty tilted ground, there to take him away in their screaming red and blue flashing van. It's after the hospital, where they sew his shredded arteries back together while his arm's have been numbed and Roxas watches in fascination as the sharp point of the needle flashes in and out of his skin like it were fabric, not flesh.

It's after he's excused from his classes on account of a mental break-down, and after he doesn't return to his dormitory because - as he steps out the school's front door - Axel is standing there, smiling at him, waiting.

Axel, with his milky white skin, his sharp un-healthy curves, his violent red hair, his thin lips pulled into a charismatic smile _just for Roxas_. Everything about the man screams Artist, but all Roxas can see is Beauty. He had been mistaken in his near unconsciousness because before him, he sees a God, not an angel.

Of course, he gives life to his thoughts, and of course, Axel merely laughs.

He takes Roxas home with him and takes the man under his wing and takes the man to his bed, and Roxas doesn't mind at all that the red-haired male is nearly six years his elder. Axel doesn't care, Roxas doesn't care, and Axel's beautiful room-mate - Marluxia - only smiles at them.

Axel is an artist as well, he tells Roxas. He's also a teacher at the same school Roxas attends and the blonde is momentarily caught up wondering why he had never seen Axel anywhere before.  
_"Because your eyes were closed,_" Axel tells him in that soft, all-knowing tone of voice he gets whenever he becomes suddenly inspired, pressing the soft pads of his thumbs against Roxas' eyelids, smiling at the angelic blonde.  
Roxas giggles in reply, and Marluxia, sitting at the nearby dining table, smiles against his coffee cup.

It isn't until Roxas has been out of the hospital long enough to take off the bandages around his wrists that Axel decides to tell him a secret. He turns all the lights in the apartment off and slides up against Roxas from behind, half-terrifying the younger, and murmurs against his ear.  
"I'm like you, Roxas" He says softly and his voice is so quiet that it doesn't carry in the small room, and gives Roxas the impression that this moment is all for him. "The only difference is that while you are a student," His fingers slide down Roxas' elbows and ghost over the now healing scars that are painted all over Roxas' wrists, "I am the teacher."

Roxas shivers pleasurably at the touches - so innocent, yet intimate - and Axel moves. He presses a kiss against Roxas' temple in a gesture of affection before guiding the other down the hallway towards the three closed doors.  
Behind him, Roxas finds himself holding his breath. His bright cerulean eyes are wide open, hovering across the room and where Axel should be but where darkness is covering. "I can't see," He gasps, tripping over his own two feet.  
Axel's fingers tighten on his wrist, and Roxas is alarmed to suddenly find those glittering emerald eyes directly in front of him. "_Then let me lead you._"

Down the hall the pair goes, and in the darkness, Roxas cannot tell what door is opened. He is ushered inside and the stench of paint invades his senses. From somewhere to his right, Axel is smiling in the dark, glittering eyes roaming over all the things in the darkened room that Roxas cannot see.  
"The reason I saved you," He starts and Roxas loyally directs his attention to the words spilling out of Axel's mouth. In the darkness where he cannot see, he imagines the words are thick with meaning and as soon as they leave his lover's mouth, they spread throughout the room in bright curls of smoke. In gold and silver and ruby, Axel says, "Was because you had potential." He pauses, and corrects himself, "_Have_ potential."

Roxas imagines Axel's words are curling up to the ceiling and branching out like a trickling stream split into multiple directions until they hit the walls. In elegant maroon, and rolling sea green, Axel's words snake down the walls, " For the modern age artist it's seemingly impossible to lash out from the chains of unoriginality; every sculpture made is merely a replica; every canvas filled to brim with story and meaning and passion is a knock off of another. Every product of hours and weeks and possibly years of passion and sweat and tears and life is just like everything else. Nothing you create is truly yours because someone else has already made it."

In shades of blue, the words zig-zag across the hardwood flooring to the tips of Roxas' toes, and the blonde shudders as they begin to wind upwards, "The body, and everything inside of it, is a work of art and a canvas in itself, Roxas."  
Up his legs the vision scales, winding around his slim hips and trailing in vines up his chest. Around his neck, they take and Roxas throws his head back, closing his eyes.

"You understand this already. I know this because of the way I found you." There are lips on his for the brief moment that Axel seeks him out in the darkness, and then the light in the room is turned on.  
Roxas' vision of words painting across the room is shattered, but he doesn't feel regret - he feels chosen for getting to experience such an illusion, brought on by Axel's beautiful words.

There is a smile in Axel's words as he speaks, cupping Roxas' chin with a strong, long hand, "You can open your eyes."  
And so Roxas does.

The room is one he has not been in before - it's neither Axels', nor is it Marluxia's - which he's only ever gotten glimpses of before because he hasn't the courage to ask the pink haired male to let him in. This one has the feel of a work room to Roxas, with intense, complicated oil paintings lining the walls - filled with dark colors and darker themes that Roxas hasn't the skill to interpret.  
The center of the room is an easel with an un-touched fabric canvas spread out upon it's three points. Beside it is a side-table filled with brushes and paints, bowls to mix and blend and dirty rags stained with a rainbow of varying colors. A few open containers have dried up paint in them, and the cup of dirty water has a few inches evaporated from it - all of this suggesting the paints have not been touched in some time.

"Not those," Axel murmurs next to him, a guiding hand slipping up to the small of Roxas' back. "That isn't real art."  
What Axel guides him to is a corner of the room covered with a thick sheet of soft plastic that has a large metal chair sitting in the center of it. Beside the chair is a large window that has black-out fabric pinned into place all over it, and on the other side is another side-table. This one does not have paints and brushes on it. It has another form of medium that entrances Roxas, and the blonde extends a hand to lovingly touch a small exacto-knife.  
The collection is vast and very well cared for - there is no rust staining the blades, and no dried blood destroying the beautiful, sharp silver objects.

There is, however, dried blood flecked upon the metal chair, that slides down in drips and streams and pools to the soft plastic floor underneath it. A precaution, Roxas understands. A smile pulls at his lips and he draws his hand away from the knife with a gesture of longing.  
Next to him, Axel pushes up the sleeves of his black shirt, and Roxas looks expectantly. A gasp bubbles out from his throat in shock - there are scars littering Axel's pale, pale arms, but they are nothing like any scar he has ever seen before. The pictures vary, and there is what Roxas and Axel see to be shading - parts where the skin was shaved off deeper than the rest to give it a different shade and depth - there is also raw, reddened pieces of the overall art that are not healed yet, are suffering the necessary stages of infection, or had previously gone through the first shedding and are still softly weeping blood. They are cherished paintings, etched with skill and precise that Roxas does not have, and they disappear where Axel's shirt begins again.  
Awed, he runs his fingers carefully along the parts he knows are safe to touch until he reaches the bunched up material. He has never seen these before, and is caught wondering if the cause is how dark Axel's bedroom is whenever they make love, or if it's simply because he has over-looked them. Curiosity compels him to ask how far they extend, but the good student keeps his mouth firmly closed because being overly eager with art is not good.

Axel smiles wide again - that smile he only graces Roxas with - and leans in to press a kiss to the captivated blonde. "When you're ready, I will teach you."

---

It is midnight and a month has passed since Roxas first came to this home, when Marluxia allows him to enter his room. He isn't sure if the action is intentional or not, because the older male is somewhat drunk when he crosses the apartment to his bedoom, where he leaves the door wide open after himself.  
Roxas stands, meek and cautious, with his bare feet lined up with the invisible barrier that is the doorway. He swears that he can see the air shimmer when he blinks - proof that the barrier is there still and it isn't just his imagination.

Marluxia throws himself ungracefully onto his bed in the semi-darkness of his room, and Roxas watches. His lips are parted, as if the lower is too pouty and full to stand up against gravity anymore, and he listens to the way Marluxia breathes - to the way he breathes.  
Axel is not home, and Roxas does not know why. The feeling is deeply unsettling, and he's been pacing the apartment for the better half of the day to calm his nerves.

In the bedroom - where Roxas can see magazine snippets of famous models pinned to the wall around a large black mirror - Marluxia groans. There is no sound, just the parting of his soft, wide lips, and the feel of the air around them moving to fit the gesture. Rolling onto his back, the pink haired man hiccups softly, and Roxas breaks through the barrier.

His bare feet move over the white carpet, leading him to the very heart of the small room. Marluxia's room is much more bare than Axel's - here, there is a mirror, and a desk. Roxas moves to the desk and picks up a bottle of medication that has tipped onto it's side, and rights it. The hard, black type rolls along the label, reading - '**PHENTERMINE'**. The name the prescription is written for is scribbled out, although Roxas can see that the first letter does not contain an 'M' in it. The bottle - half empty - does not strike him as significant. But maybe he's just not looking close enough...  
Besides the mirror and the desk, there is a shut closet and a large bed where Marluxia is curling into a ball and that is all. The walls are unmarred, a sickly white that matches the white white carpet, but Roxas isn't interested in these things anymore.  
This room - Marluxia's room - does not look as if Marluxia actually lives in it. Roxas had understood Axel from the things in his bedroom - from the vast amount of candles that littered the place, to the thick oil paintings that hung on the walls. He does not understand Marluxia, and he feels frustrated.

Carefully, Roxas presses his feet against the carpeting, making sure there was no trigger here to make the real room show itself. No magic occurs, and while Roxas feels momentarily cheated, he continues on to Marluxia's bed.  
The man is silent as Roxas crawls up onto the bed, though he does roll over and Roxas straddles his waist. Curious, his small fingers press at the cloth of Marluxia's black shirt, slipping underneath it and tracing the skin there. "Do you have them too?" He whispers, eyes wide.  
Marluxia merely smiles, and Roxas can smell the sangria wine on his breath.

He slips the other's shirt off, fingers gliding over his chest and down his shoulders. It's at Marluxia's wrists that Roxas finds what he was looking for. Thin vines are carved here, winding up past his elbows and slowly dissipating into his healed skin. They meld with one another, crossing paths and looping and swirling and Roxas looses himself as he traces them all one path at a time.

When Roxas looks up, Marluxia is smiling again, and he decides he likes the way it looks on him and leans down to press a kiss to the older man's lips. Strong hands snake up to grasp Roxas around the waist and he jumps - as if in Marluxia's silence, he had assumed the man was incapable of movement as well. Marluxia nips at his lower lip, almost playfully, and Roxas gasps. As the elder's tongue slips into his mouth, the front door opens.  
It only takes a few minutes for Axel to reach them, but Marluxia has managed to both remove Roxas' shirt and gain an throaty moan from the boy with a roll of his hips.  
Roxas jumps - again - as there is suddenly a third presence in the room, and is momentarily terrified that Axel will be outraged.

There is a familiar chuckle by his ear - warm breath tickling his neck - and a shift of weight on the bed. "I see you found the Saint."  
Axel presses a kiss to his neck as Marluxia continues uninterrupted, to un-do the catch and fly of Roxas' pants.

"S-Saint?" Roxas groans in reply as Marluxia's hand slips down the front of his boxers.

The bed shifts and Axel slips up upon it as well. There is a soft thump as he kicks off his shoes and shrugs off his jacket, and then he leans forward to press a kiss to Marluxia's lips. "The Saint of Silence," He murmurs with an affectionate look graced to Marluxia.

Roxas whimpers, his eyes half-lidded as he surveys Axel with an intense, meaningful look that sends a chill up the red-head spine. "Does that make you the Saint of Speech?"  
Axel's smile grows wider, glittering in the semi-darkness of the room, and a moan bubbles up in Roxas' throat when Axel bites his neck softly. He's pleased his teacher.

--

"If you are fire," Roxas kisses the red carvings that lick up Axel's wrists, "And Marluxia is earth - does that make me water?"  
Axel and Marluxia exchange a quiet glance, and Roxas catches it.

The youngest purses his lips together in thought, letting his fingers travel the flames on Axel's arms. Axel's fingers hold firmly to his hips, keeping Roxas on his lap - and beside the two on the couch, Marluxia takes a drink of his herbal tea.  
"No," Roxas answers for himself, frowning. "That's someone else, isn't it?"

To answer him, Axel leans up and presses a kiss on his throat. Marluxia merely smiles and drinks again from his cup, avoiding Roxas' blue blue eyes.

Roxas slouches forward, resting his cheek in the crook of Axel's neck. Axel's arms move to accommodate this, wrapping around the younger's waist. Lips against Axel's pale pale collarbone, Roxas asks, "Then what am I?"

Axel smiles, lifting a hand to run it through the blonde's hair. "_You are my light."  
_

* * *

Not as much of a pretty cliff-hanger as the last chapter, but, spare some reviews nonetheless?__


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